The invention concerns an injector cooling block for holding at least one injector for introducing a medium into a metallurgical vessel, especially an electric arc furnace, wherein the injector cooling block is arranged in or on a wall of the metallurgical vessel, wherein the injector cooling block has at least one plate, in which is arranged a cooling channel or a cooling bore, through which a cooling medium can flow, and wherein the cooling channel or the cooling bore separates a hot zone from a cold zone.
An injector cooling block of this type is described in WO 2010/003694 A1.
The injector cooling block is a holding fixture for holding at least one injector in a metallurgical vessel, especially an electric arc furnace. The injector is used to inject media, such as gases and/or solids, into the metallurgical vessel, wherein each injector is arranged in or on the wall of the vessel over an opening in a protected way by means of the injector cooling block, which is provided with coolant channels.
The injector cooling block is usually made of copper and is provided with an internal cooling water channel. As a result of the water cooling and the great thermal conductivity of copper, the copper material is maintained at a temperature that prevents destruction of the injector cooling block inside an electric arc furnace. The injector cooling block has an opening through which gases and/or solids can be injected into the electric arc furnace by an injection system. In this regard, the injector cooling block serves to protect the injection system from mechanical stress by scrap iron and alloys, severe action of heat by radiation of the hot molten metal and the electric arc, and contact with the molten phase. In addition, as a special structural part of a furnace wall element, the water-cooled element seals the furnace chamber from the outside.
Previous solutions usually have no devices with which the temperatures and the stresses (and strains) in the housing wall of the injector cooling block can be detected. To the extent that measurements are made at all, they are carried out with a sensor that measures only at a single point.
Therefore, it is difficult or impossible to obtain reliable information about the state of the injector cooling block and the stress to which it is being subjected, especially in regard to stresses over the areal extent of the block.
It is already basically known that optical waveguides can be used for the measurement of thermal quantities, as described, for example, in WO 2004/015349 A2 and WO 2007/079894 A1, FP 0 208 067 31 proposes the use of radiation measuring instruments. Similar solutions are described in WO 99/67613 A1 and DE 38 07 306 A1.